Читать книгу Rage. The Legend of "Baseball Bill" Denehy онлайн

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“I’m going to order for you,” he said, and he ordered me a plain piece of chicken and a salad, and for dessert he said I could have a little cup of Jell-O or a little cup of fruit. That was my dinner with Eddie Stanky. And I hadn’t yet pitched a game.

Where were the mashed potatoes? Where was my chocolate cake?

Eddie had been a firebrand, and in one of the first pieces of advice he gave me, he told me, “When you look at pitching, consider a loaf of bread. If you get the hitter out, then that loaf of bread goes to your family. If you don’t get him out, the batter’s family gets the loaf of bread.”

Stanky also told me I would never become a major leaguer unless I learned to throw a batter a first-pitch breaking ball for a strike.

“And you have to learn how to pitch under pressure,” he said.

I was warming up just before I was scheduled to start a game. Eddie walked up to me and said, “Okay, first pitch, curveball.” He squatted down beside me. I threw a curve; it was way out of the strike zone.